"We’re very happy with our IN.LINE system. There are many places in Seattle to see live music- the role of our club in the jazz community is to showcase major jazz, blues and world music artists in an intimate setting. The McCauley IN.LINE installation was done to maintain that role. "

John Dimitriou

Jazz Alley

Regarded by many as Seattle’s premier jazz location, John Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley hosts hundreds of world-class jazz performances every year. It's also the first installation of McCauley Sound's IN.LINE installation-grade line array product. Overhauled in 2002, when the IN.LINE product was in it's final protyping stage, Jazz Alley soon became a national show-case for McCauley Sound's latest technology.

Six years later, the club's sound continues to impress both artists, engineers and audiences alike. Since the upgrade, countless national touring acts have performed to rave reviews. John Dimitriou’s Jazz Alley has received much praise, recognized with awards that include the Citysearch Editors and Audience Choice for Seattle’s Best Jazz Club, DownBeat Magazine as one of the top 100 Jazz Clubs in the world, and has gotten the Best Jazz Club Award from The Seattle Times.

John Dimitriou has been more the pleased. “Jazz Alley exists for both the artists and the audience. We do whatever we can to ensure both parties walk away from the club with a positive perception of the ‘Jazz Alley Experience.’ To maintain that atmosphere, we needed to upgrade our system for a more sophisticated sound.”

Recently Maceo Parker performed in the space to a standing room only crowd. Maceo’s FOH Engineer, Goat, was impressed with the sound quality in the club. “We do everything from giant festivals and 7,000 seat theaters, to little jazz clubs,” said Goat. “There are some night’s where set up and production is a complete

The band had arrived later than expected due to traffic, and had about a half an hour to set up. “We were able to do the set up with no problem, but there was almost no sound check” said Goat. The eight piece ensemble did a short check with the previous EQ settings, but usually Goat will tweak it to his liking with a cd he uses at every gig. “As a rule, I’ll walk the room with my mix playing, but we walked into their system, set up the band and I was really surprised at how well the EQ sounded. I did some brief tweaking to the system, but the McCauley rig really dialed in quickly. That was impressive.”

Jazz Alley’s lay out is one that’s pleasing to patrons and performers. The stage is centered against the back wall with table seating surrounding it, allowing guests to have a more intimate experience with the performers. Additional seating is available in the balcony, which follows the shape of the stage and fills out the top half of the club. Goat had mentioned the challenge in monitoring the room previous to the IN.LINE installation. “In the past, I found it difficult to have even coverage in there. But when I did the quick sound check this time, I discovered that no matter where I walked in room, it all sounded the same. It can be very difficult to pull off a loud funk show without tearing people’s ears off in a small space, but I think McCauley’s IN.LINE system did a great job in translating what I was trying to do at close range.”

“We’re very happy with our IN.LINE system,” said Dimitriou. “There are many places in Seattle to see live music- the role of our club in the jazz community is to showcase major jazz, blues and world music artists in an intimate setting. The McCauley IN.LINE installation was done to maintain that role."